Environment

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK - Yosemite National Park is bracing for its driest year on record, with visitor bureaus downplaying the allure of the park's most famous waterfall and instead touting the park as a destination for hiking, bicycling and photography.

The frozen fringes of western Antarctica have been melting 70 percent faster in the last decade, raising concern that an important buttress keeping land-based ice sheets from flowing to the sea could collapse or vanish in coming decades, a new study shows.

The government "rubber stamps" the license for the Miami Seaquarium despite the park keeping Lolita the killer whale in inhumane conditions, an animal rights group told a federal appeals court Tuesday.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is poised to help Shell clear a major hurdle in its effort to resume drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean, despite opposition from her hometown of Seattle, where the company’s drilling fleet would be moored at the city’s port.

Federal agriculture officials are spending nearly $60 million this year to help combat the beetles, bollworms and other bugs that have the potential to wreak havoc on American crops, with California and Florida taking the biggest share.

A U.S. soldier killed 16 Afghan civilians on Sunday, including three women and nine children, in an unprovoked attack in southern Kandahar province, Afghan officials said. | 03/11/12 21:59:26 By - By Jon Stephenson and Ali Safi

More than 3,000 detainees held by the U.S. military will be transferred to Afghan control within six months under an agreement signed Friday between the United States and Afghanistan. | 03/09/12 17:08:55 By - Jon Stephenson

In a case that shines a harsh light on the interference in the country's politics of Pakistan's army and its premier spy agency, the Supreme Court on Friday heard an admission by a former spymaster that he distributed secret funds to opposition politicians in elections in 1990. | 03/09/12 15:40:45 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistani authorities said Thursday that they'd filed charges against Osama bin Laden's three widows as an investigation revealed fresh details of the dead al Qaida leader's family life in Pakistan — including suspicions by two of the women that the oldest wife would betray him. | 03/08/12 17:43:28 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan soldiers and police say the recent burning of Qurans by U.S. personnel has seriously undermined their trust in their American counterparts, suggesting that the decade-long campaign to win hearts and minds has not only failed but also threatens the Obama administration's exit strategy. | 03/08/12 17:16:57 By - Jon Stephenson and Ali Safi

Six British soldiers were believed to be killed when an explosion struck their armored vehicle, marking the biggest loss of life for British forces in Afghanistan in years, officials in London said Wednesday. | 03/07/12 18:10:56 By - Jon Stephenson

Two Afghan civilians were killed and four wounded on Monday when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the entrance to the U.S.-run Bagram Air Base, where Qurans were burned by U.S. soldiers last month, local officials said. | 03/05/12 15:17:43 By - Ali Safi

A Pentagon investigation has found five soldiers responsible for burning copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, which set off a spate of anti-American protests and violence across Afghanistan, two U.S. military officials said Friday. | 03/02/12 18:52:34 By - Nancy A. Youssef

A leading coalition of American humanitarian aid groups has written to the CIA chief to protest the agency's use of a Pakistani doctor to help track Osama bin Laden, linking the ploy to a worsening polio crisis in Pakistan. | 03/02/12 17:44:57 By - Saeed Shah

Afghans killed two American soldiers and wounded at least two others before dawn Thursday at a joint base in Kandahar province, in the latest deadly shooting of international forces by their Afghan partners, U.S. officials said. | 03/01/12 16:51:03 By - Jon Stephenson and Nancy A. Youssef

As violence continued Monday in Afghanistan over the accidental burning of Qurans by U.S. troops last week, American military officials and analysts are beginning to question whether the U.S. needs to change its mission of training Afghan soldiers and police, a key plank of President Barack Obama's withdrawal strategy. | 02/27/12 18:06:17 By - Nancy A. Youssef

A suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle at the entrance to a joint Afghan-U.S. air base in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Monday, killing at least nine people, local officials said. | 02/27/12 09:13:12 By - Ali Safi

The commander of the U.S.-led international force in Afghanistan on Saturday withdrew all NATO personnel from government ministries in and around Kabul after two U.S. soldiers were killed inside the Afghan Interior Ministry. | 02/25/12 11:07:48 By - Ali Safi and Jonathan S. Landay

Afghans took to the streets for a fourth day Friday to protest American mistreatment of the Quran in demonstrations that left at least nine people dead and thousands more expressing frustration that after 10 years of war, U.S. troops still don't understand how to handle a Muslim holy book. | 02/24/12 17:27:36 By - Ali Safi and Kate Tamba Howard

President Barack Obama apologized Thursday for the accidental burning of Qurans by U.S. forces in Afghanistan as anti-American protests raged for a third consecutive day, leaving two NATO troops and at least five Afghans dead and 26 Afghans wounded nationwide. | 02/23/12 17:04:08 By - Ali Safi and Jon Stephenson

At least nine people were killed and dozens wounded Wednesday in the second day of anti-American protests in Afghanistan after U.S. personnel burned Qurans and other Islamic material at Bagram air base, officials said. | 02/22/12 18:31:23 By - Ali Safi and Nancy A. Youssef

The commander of U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan apologized Tuesday after reports that American troops at Bagram Air Base had accidentally burned hundreds of copies of the Quran, sparking outrage among Afghans. | 02/21/12 16:59:38 By - Ali Safi

A suicide car bomber killed an Afghan police officer and a young girl Monday in the restive southern city of Kandahar, local officials said. A second police officer and three civilians were wounded, said Javid Faisal, a spokesman for the governor's office. | 02/20/12 19:25:53 By - Ali Safi

Afghanistan's Ministry of Mines rejected allegations of problems in the bidding for one of the country's largest mines, calling it "a fair and transparent process." | 02/18/12 16:11:14 By - Jon Stephenson

An Afghan-American company that failed to win a multibillion-dollar contract to develop one of Afghanistan's most lucrative mines alleges that the bidding process was riddled with irregularities and that the winning bidders may not be able to meet production targets. | 02/17/12 18:08:34 By - Jon Stephenson and Ali Safi

An angry Afghan President Hamid Karzai confronted the Pakistani leadership Thursday, demanding that it produce Taliban officials for peace talks and underscoring the distrust between Kabul and Islamabad, which stands in the way of a deal to end the decade-long Afghan conflict. | 02/17/12 16:08:15 By - Saeed Shah

Western humanitarian groups have accelerated their plans to exit areas of Pakistan that were devastated in the 2010 floods after a spate of aid worker kidnappings and amid growing tensions with Pakistani security agencies. | 02/16/12 16:52:07 By - Tom Hussain

The family of Osama bin Laden's youngest wife has asked the chief justice of Pakistan to order authorities to release her children and her and allow them to return to Yemen, nine months after the U.S. special forces raid that killed the al Qaida founder. Zakaria Ahmad al Sadah, brother of Amal al Sadah, bin Laden's Yemeni wife, said his sister's five children were in poor mental health and had received no schooling since they were taken into custody after the raid May 2. | 02/14/12 17:27:36 By - Saeed Shah

At least the waiting is over. That's small consolation for friends and family of 12 Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker soldiers who spent much of the past two years ensnared in a sprawling war crimes investigation. | 02/13/12 08:41:42 By - Adam Ashton

The Pakistani Supreme Court on Monday forced authorities to produce seven men who had vanished from prison two years ago into the apparent custody of the military's main spy agency as the court continued to assert its authority against both the country's powerful army and its weak civilian government. | 02/13/12 06:20:54 By - Saeed Shah

In a court battle testing the impunity long enjoyed by Pakistan's intelligence service, the Pakistani military said Thursday that it wouldn't bring forward seven men who were mysteriously kidnapped from prison in 2010 — allegedly by intelligence agents — because they were in extremely poor health. | 02/09/12 17:40:56 By - Saeed Shah

A U.S. drone strike reportedly killed a notorious Pakistani al Qaida operative before dawn Thursday in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, the latest sign that the United States and Pakistan are stepping up coordinated intelligence operations despite a downturn in relations. | 02/09/12 16:01:25 By - Tom Hussain

The Afghan soldier suspected of killing four French troops last month had serious mental health problems and a history of violence, but he wasn't a Taliban insurgent, his father told McClatchy. | 02/08/12 16:58:27 By - Jon Stephenson

The Afghan soldier who killed four French troops last month bribed an Afghan army recruiter to forge his enlistment papers, deserted to Pakistan and then bribed his way back into the army a month before the shootings, McClatchy has learned. | 02/03/12 15:29:59 By - Jon Stephenson and Ali Safi

The Obama administration scrambled Thursday to tamp down the fallout out from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's surprise announcement that the United States would end its combat role in Afghanistan a year earlier than expected — a revelation that heightened confusion over U.S. strategy and stoked Afghan distrust of American intentions. | 02/02/12 19:35:44 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

Pakistan's prime minister will be charged with contempt of court and was ordered Thursday to appear in person before the Supreme Court on Feb. 13, in proceedings that could lead to him being jailed and disqualified from office. | 02/02/12 06:17:12 By - Saeed Shah

One of the Marines shown urinating on three corpses in Afghanistan in a widely distributed Internet video was the unit's leader, two U.S. military officials have told McClatchy, raising concerns that poor command standards contributed to an incident that may have damaged the U.S. war effort. | 02/01/12 17:59:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

The U.S. military plans to change the focus of its Afghanistan mission from combat to training local forces by the end of 2013, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday, apparently accelerating the timeline for Afghan forces to take over security responsibilities from NATO troops. | 02/01/12 19:16:16 By - Nancy A. Youssef

The announcement by France last week that it would speed up the exit of its troops from Afghanistan has been greeted with a mixture of cynicism, disbelief and concern by politicians here. | 01/31/12 16:25:08 By - Jon Stephenson

The losses of Osama bin Laden and other key figures have seriously degraded the core al Qaida organization's ability to mount major strikes and continued "robust" U.S. counter-terrorism efforts could reduce the group to only symbolic importance, the top U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday. | 01/31/12 10:00:11 By - Jonathan S. Landay

For the first time ever, political parties have started campaigning for votes in the militant-infested tribal areas of Pakistan that border Afghanistan, ahead of a general election likely within the next 12 months. | 01/30/12 15:58:42 By - Tom Hussain

A senior American official has for the first time admitted that a Pakistani doctor played a key role in tracking Osama bin Laden to his hideout in northern Pakistan and called for his release. | 01/29/12 14:28:05 By - Saeed Shah

The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan had planned to use his latest foray to the region to build Afghan government support for the nascent U.S. effort to kindle peace talks with the Taliban. Instead, Ambassador Marc Grossman found himself last week putting out a fire ignited by a meeting between four U.S. Congress members and Afghan opposition leaders in Germany | 01/27/12 19:06:13 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Fears that Pakistan's military might orchestrate a collapse of the civilian government abated Wednesday after the prime minister and army chief publicly signaled that they'd reconciled their political differences. | 01/25/12 19:08:17 By - Tom Hussain

A kidnapped 70-year-old American aid contractor is alive and in good health, being held by a Pakistani al Qaida affiliate that's likely to use him as a bargaining chip, according to militants, security officials and analysts. | 01/25/12 16:02:18 By - Tom Hussain

Jonathan Keith "Jack" Idema, the con man extraordinaire from Fayetteville who spent years in an Afghan prison for running a private jail and torture chamber while claiming to be a secret Pentagon operative, has reportedly died in Mexico. | 01/25/12 12:07:59 By - Jay Price

The American businessman at the heart of the explosive "memogate" political scandal will not come to Pakistan to testify, blaming concerns for his own safety, his lawyer admitted Monday. | 01/23/12 06:24:38 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that he recently met with a peace delegation from an insurgent faction of the Islamic nationalist group Hezb-i-Islami that he hoped would have "productive results." | 01/21/12 15:22:00 By - Ali Safi

The killings of four French troops Friday by an Afghan soldier they were training has renewed concerns — a decade into the training mission — that Afghans are growing increasingly disdainful of the U.S.-led coalition forces ostensibly there to help them and are striking back. | 01/20/12 18:56:36 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Ali Safi

At least 20 people have been killed in suicide attacks in southern Afghanistan, authorities said Thursday, including seven civilians who died when a bomber blew himself up near an airport used by the U.S.-led coalition. | 01/19/12 15:44:00 By - Ali Safi

Extending a battle of wills between Pakistan's government and its judiciary, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the Supreme Court on Thursday that he wouldn't bow to a court order targeting the country's president. | 01/19/12 07:04:14 By - Saeed Shah

An Air Force investigation into a shooting spree by an Afghan colonel that left nine U.S. military trainers dead last year found high levels of hostility between Afghan and American forces and major Afghan support for the shooter. | 01/17/12 19:02:54 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was threatened Monday with jail for contempt of court and ordered to appear before the Supreme Court in person, with any conviction on the charge leading to him possibly being disqualified from office. | 01/16/12 07:10:55 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan's political crisis, which pits its president against determined foes in the country's parliament, Supreme Court and military, is likely to reach fever pitch on Monday with a confidence vote scheduled in parliament and hearings scheduled in two critical court cases. | 01/15/12 18:48:49 By - Saeed Shah

The Pentagon scrambled Thursday to assure Afghans that it would aggressively investigate a video that shows U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of three Afghans, while Afghans' reaction varied from outrage to resignation that the video merely reflected behavior that they think is typical of American troops. | 01/12/12 19:16:26 By - Nancy A. Youssef

The controversial American businessman at the center of the legal case that threatens to bring down the Pakistani government vowed Thursday to fly to Islamabad and tell the court the "unaltered truth" in the so-called Memogate scandal. | 01/12/12 17:50:01 By - Saeed Shah

A new top-secret U.S. intelligence assessment warns that Taliban leaders haven't abandoned their goal of reclaiming power and reimposing harsh Islamic rule on Afghanistan, raising doubts about the success of any peace deal that the Obama administration tries to broker between Kabul and the insurgents. | 01/11/12 16:38:11 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

The confrontation between Pakistan's civilian government and its powerful army escalated sharply Wednesday when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani fired the defense secretary and the military warned that remarks by Gilani this week had "potentially grievous consequences." | 01/11/12 10:07:13 By - Saeed Shah

With a decision to fast-track the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Iran, Pakistan is underscoring not only the energy needs of its flailing economy but also its growing estrangement from Washington. | 01/10/12 17:32:12 By - Tom Hussain

The Pakistani government has mounted a counterattack against moves by the country's military and Supreme Court that could result in what critics call a constitutional coup against President Asif Ali Zardari. | 01/05/12 16:45:56 By - Tom Hussain

Pakistan's powerful army wants President Asif Ali Zardari gone, but it has ruled out staging a coup, and instead is hoping for a legal ruling that could lead to Zardari's impeachment by the country's parliament, analysts and military insiders say. | 12/30/11 18:15:27 By - Tom Hussain

Pakistan's military on Friday ratcheted up tensions with the U.S., rejecting the findings of a Pentagon investigation into the friendly fire deaths of 25 Pakistani soldiers. The rejection came amid increasing political instability in Pakistan over allegations that the president, Asif Zardari, had in May sought American assistance to avert a military takeover. | 12/23/11 17:49:19 By - Tom Hussain

A U.S. military investigation has blamed poor coordination between American and Pakistani forces for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a friendly fire incident along the Afghanistan border in November, the Pentagon said Thursday. | 12/22/11 17:53:29 By - Tom Hussain

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has confounded predictions of his downfall throughout his term in office, but even as the U.S. ally unexpectedly returned to the country this week, many still believe that his demise is close at hand. | 12/21/11 09:05:18 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan is planning to tax supplies for U.S.-led coalition troops that are shipped through its territory to land-locked Afghanistan, officials revealed, in retaliation for the recent deaths of its soldiers in a "friendly fire" incident on the border. | 12/14/11 18:22:15 By - Saeed Shah

With Dakota Meyer standing at attention in his dress uniform, sweat glistening on his forehead under the television lights, President Barack Obama extolled the Marine sergeant for the "extraordinary actions" that had earned him the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor. But crucial parts of the narrative that the Marine Corps publicized and Obama described are untrue, unsubstantiated or exaggerated. | 12/14/11 17:02:40 By - Jonathan S. Landay

"The President was very proud to present the Medal of Honor to Sergeant Meyer for his extraordinary service in Afghanistan. As the President said that day, "in Sergeant Dakota Meyer we see the best of a generation that has served through a decade of war." — Tommy Vietor, NSC Spokesman | 12/14/11 17:05:10 By -

At least 55 people were killed and scores wounded Tuesday in a suicide attack that targeted Shiite Muslim worshippers in Kabul, raising the specter of sectarian violence even as the United States searches for a way out of the Afghan war. | 12/06/11 18:16:22 By - Ali Safi

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be winding down, but the long-term costs of caring for those wounded in battle is on path to rival the costs of the Vietnam War. While Vietnam extracted a far higher death toll — 58,000 compared with 6,300 so far in the war on terror — the number of documented disabilities from recent veterans is approaching the size of that earlier conflict. | 12/05/11 01:01:00 By - Chris Adams

A high-level international conference opens Monday in Germany where representatives of more than 90 countries and organizations gather to discuss the future of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of foreign military forces. | 12/03/11 17:25:23 By - Ali Safi

Pakistan's top military commander has issued orders to the country's troops to return fire should they come under attack again from U.S.-led coalition forces in a move likely to increase tensions after last week's American-led raid on two border outposts that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. | 12/02/11 09:22:24 By - Saeed Shah

NATO officials said Afghan and U.S. troops operating inside Afghanistan early Saturday had been fired on from the Pakistani side of the border and had requested close air support to help defend themselves. But Pakistan's chief military spokesman said he did not believe that there had been any fire directed at the Americans from Pakistan and said he did not believe the U.S. attack could have been inadvertent. | 11/27/11 18:29:32 By - Saeed Shah and Nancy A. Youssef

Pakistan on Saturday blocked supply routes for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan and announced it would end American use of a Pakistani airbase in retaliation for a NATO attack on a Pakistani border outpost that officials said killed at least 24 soldiers and injured another 13. | 11/26/11 09:42:42 By - Saeed Shah

Sherry Rehman, a high-profile politician under threat for her call to reform Pakistan's blasphemy law, was named Pakistan's new ambassador to Washington on Wednesday, one day after her predecessor was forced to resign at the apparent behest of the country's powerful military. | 11/23/11 15:43:34 By - Saeed Shah

Sherry Rehman, a high-profile politician under threat for her call to reform Pakistan's blasphemy law, was appointed as the new ambassador to Washington on Wednesday, a day after her predecessor Husain Haqqani was ousted at the apparent behest of the countrys powerful military. | 11/23/11 07:45:56 By - Saeed Shah

A confrontation between Pakistans powerful military and the civilian government, over a controversial offer supposedly made by the government to the U.S. administration to rein in the army forces and its spy agency, led Tuesday to the resignation of the Islamabads ambassador to Washington. | 11/22/11 11:22:37 By - Saeed Shah

An overwhelming majority of the participants of a loya jirga or the grand council of elders on Saturday backed President Hamid Karzai's call for a long-term partnership with the United States that would come into effect after the withdrawal of international troops in 2014. | 11/19/11 11:12:50 By - Habib Zohori

Pakistan's telecommunications regulator has ordered cellphone companies to monitor text messages and block any that contain any of more than 1,100 words and phrases that could be considered swear words, references to sex acts or terms of abuse. | 11/18/11 16:20:18 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Washington on Thursday amid a growing clamor here over claims that Pakistan's civilian president had sought U.S. backing against senior military leaders in the wake of the discovery that al Qaida founder Osama bin Laden had been living in Pakistan. | 11/17/11 17:44:38 By - Saeed Shah

The war in his homeland was a boom time for Sayed Aman Abed. The Kabul real estate broker made a small fortune over the past several years as billions of dollars in foreign aid and reconstruction contracts flooded into Afghanistan, creating a robust market for homebuyers and renters in the capital. Abed, a slight, boyish 25-year-old, did well enough to pick up the entire tab for his wedding last year, which cost $27,000, a princely sum in Afghanistan. | 11/17/11 15:33:52 By - Shashank Bengali

A four-day gathering of more than 2,000 influential Afghan elders began Wednesday to consider what framework should guide future relations with the United States, with President Hamid Karzai calling for a strong partnership "but with conditions" aimed at preserving Afghanistan's "national sovereignty." | 11/17/11 07:48:10 By - Habib Zohori

A four-day gathering of more than 2,000 influential Afghan elders began Wednesday to consider what framework should guide future relations with the United States, with President Hamid Karzai calling for a strong partnership "but with conditions" aimed at preserving Afghanistan's "national sovereignty." | 11/16/11 08:41:39 By - Habib Zohori

Attempting to embarrass the Afghan government ahead of a major national assembly, the Taliban on Sunday published what they called the government's secret security plan for the event, including details of troop deployments and cell phone numbers of security officials. | 11/14/11 00:19:39 By - Habib Zohori

A Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker squad leader will spend the rest of his life in jail for abusing his leadership position and persuading junior soldiers to join him in plots to murder Afghan civilians in combat-like engagements last year. | 11/10/11 18:22:22 By - Adam Ashton

Alleging corruption and theft, U.S. officials in Ghazni terminated a $10 million road contract, pulling the plug on a closely watched infrastructure project in this strategic province and putting themselves at odds with a powerful governor who coalition forces had hoped would be a key ally. | 11/10/11 16:38:25 By - Shashank Bengali

The bid to make peace with Afghan insurgents is failing by nearly all accounts even as the U.S.-led military coalition plans to withdraw its troops and, within three years, hand control of security nationwide to Afghan forces. | 11/03/11 15:38:47 By - Shashank Bengali

With expectations rising in Pakistan of an election being called within months, anti-American politicians are in the ascendancy, leaving the current pro-U.S. government facing defeat. | 11/03/11 15:30:07 By - Saeed Shah

Defense attorneys for accused kill team ringleader Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs grilled the Armys main witness for four hours Tuesday in a Joint Base Lewis-McChord courtroom. But one new image of an alleged murder victim undercut some of the doubts they raised about the witness. | 11/02/11 13:14:04 By - Adam Ashton

Taliban insurgents crashed a truck filled with explosives into a checkpoint outside a neighborhood housing international offices in Kandahar, in the latest attack targeting the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan. | 10/31/11 05:31:18 By - Habib Zohori

Dismounting from their armored convoy on a desolate stretch of Afghanistan's most important highway, the elite U.S. Army route-clearance team knew what to expect. They'd been struck by roadside bombs there before, and they'd been shot at there before. | 10/31/11 03:16:46 By - Shashank Bengali

Taliban fighters wearing suicide vests and armed with assault rifles attacked a U.S.-run civilian and military base on Thursday in the southern city of Kandahar, killing one Afghan and wounding two others, officials said. | 10/27/11 15:32:39 By - Habib Zohori

After a decade taking the fight to the terrorists in the hills of Afghanistan, the Marine Corps has spent $20 million to bring a little slice of Afghanistan to Camp Lejeune. It took about a year to convert an old warehouse on base into the 32,000-square-foot Infantry Immersion Trainer, a high-tech re-creation of a rural Afghan village. | 10/26/11 07:21:07 By - Martha Quillin

The wide-ranging "strategic partnership" that Afghanistan signed with India this month would seem only logical: South Asia's economic heavyweight cementing its longstanding political, cultural and trade ties with the region's neediest nation. But this is Afghanistan, and nothing is that simple. | 10/25/11 16:31:06 By - Shashank Bengali

As U.S.-led coalition forces intensify their battle against insurgents in rugged eastern Afghanistan, many residents there remain skeptical of the chances for military success and worry about the fallout from increased fighting. | 10/24/11 14:37:10 By - Habib Zohori and Shashank Bengali

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that she'd won agreement from Pakistan to take some sort of action against the Haqqani insurgent network, but she suggested the action would not be military in nature, leaving unclear what her high-powered delegation accomplished during its two-day visit here. | 10/21/11 19:05:38 By - Saeed Shah

Joint Base Lewis-McChord's operations center was hindered by high turnover and inconsistent training when it missed an early warning that could have tipped off the Army about a series of murders allegedly committed by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, according to an Army investigation obtained by The News Tribune. | 10/20/11 07:49:58 By - Adam Ashton

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday delivered the sharpest U.S. warning yet to Pakistani leaders: Crack down on the Afghan insurgents based on your soil or pay "a very big price." | 10/20/11 06:18:20 By - Shashank Bengali

In a rare display of U.S. muscle, the United States' top diplomat, its senior-most military officer and its spy chief arrive here Thursday for a tense two-day visit that's likely to focus on U.S. accusations of Pakistani support for an Afghan insurgent group that the U.S. blames for thousands of deaths inside Afghanistan. | 10/19/11 17:59:04 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

Pakistan on Tuesday inaugurated construction of a giant dam that would help plug its crippling electricity shortfall, but without a hoped-for infusion of cash for the project from the United States and other international funders. | 10/18/11 18:31:47 By - Saeed Shah

Explosions and gunfire erupted in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan Tuesday as U.S.-led international forces and Afghan soldiers began what seemed likely to become a new, coordinated offensive against insurgents whom American officials blame for a series of recent major terrorist attacks in Kabul. | 10/18/11 17:25:04 By - Shashank Bengali and Habib Zohori

Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs looked the part of the no-nonsense squad leader whod keep his fellow soldiers alive when he joined a platoon three months after it hit the ground in Afghanistan. | 10/18/11 07:41:09 By - Adam Ashton

More than 75 Afghan elders filed into a meeting with U.S. Army officers early last year to deliver a disturbing message: Soldiers patrolling villages in southern Afghanistan had, among other things, killed two innocent young men. They didn't deserve to die, the elders said. | 10/16/11 20:11:04 By - Adam Ashton

The United Nations on Monday said that suspected Taliban detainees are routinely beaten and tortured in detention centers run by Afghanistan's police and spy agency. | 10/10/11 17:57:45 By - Habib Zohori

A large crowd of Islamic militants rallied this week in the heart of Islamabad to voice support for Pakistan's army and to condemn the United States in another sign of a growing tide of extremism sweeping the country. | 10/07/11 16:58:50 By - Saeed Shah

Nearly 1,800 U.S. military members have been killed in Afghanistan since the war began there 10 years ago, enough to form a single-file rank of soldiers a mile long. At the head of that line  the first U.S. casualty in the war  is a Fort Lewis Special Forces sergeant whose wife and two children continue to live in the Puyallup area. Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Chapman. | 10/07/11 12:41:01 By - Rob Carson

President Barack Obama cautioned Pakistan on Thursday that it's jeopardizing long-term relations with the United States — including billions of dollars in military and civilian aid — by maintaining ties with insurgent groups that are fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. | 10/06/11 19:33:47 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Ten years into the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, neighboring Pakistan, despite receiving billions of dollars in U.S. military and financial support, continues to be gripped by an economic crisis and persistent terrorist attacks. | 10/06/11 15:49:59 By - Adeel Raza and Tariq Naqash

U.S. hopes that Pakistan will cut its ties to the Haqqani terrorist network have suffered another blow, and from a source that many Western observers might not have suspected: a pact between India and Afghanistan that calls for India to provide assistance to Afghanistan's security forces. | 10/05/11 18:22:29 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan officials said Wednesday that they'd broken up an al Qaida-affiliated terrorist cell at Kabul University that was planning to assassinate President Hamid Karzai and carry out attacks in the United States. | 10/05/11 15:19:53 By - Habib Zohori

Ten years after the Afghan war began, President Obama says his strategy has turned the tables on the Taliban and allowed U.S. combat forces to begin withdrawing. But many Afghans counter that the insurgents are merely waiting out the U.S. drawdown, and worry that U.S. policy is turning the clock back to Afghanistan's pre-2001 civil war. | 10/04/11 17:59:13 By - Jonathan S. Landay

In a sign of worsening relations between two key U.S. allies, Afghanistan's government on Tuesday accused Pakistan of refusing to cooperate in the investigation into last month's assassination of the head of the Afghan peace commission — a plot the Afghans say was hatched in Pakistan. | 10/04/11 16:14:39 By - Habib Zohori

Adm. Mike Mullen's accusation that Pakistan is supporting an Afghan insurgent group that's blamed for attacks on U.S. troops has done what no one else has been able to do: unified Pakistan's divergent politicians and its military. | 09/29/11 17:16:10 By - Saeed Shah

To American officials, the Haqqani network is a criminal syndicate with al Qaida and Taliban ties that is frequently responsible for deadly attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan must sever its ties or risk being branded a supporter of terrorism. | 09/28/11 17:24:31 By - Saeed Shah

Violence in Afghanistan is up nearly 40 percent over last year, a United Nations report released Wednesday found, contradicting claims by the U.S.-led coalition that security has improved since last year. | 09/28/11 16:37:17 By - Habib Zohori

A minibus carrying civilians in the western province of Herat hit a roadside bomb Tuesday, triggering an explosion that killed 16 civilians, including children and women, provincial officials said. | 09/27/11 16:25:38 By - Habib Zohori

One American was killed and another wounded when an Afghan employee of the U.S. Embassy opened fire Sunday night inside the CIA's office here, the embassy confirmed Monday. | 09/26/11 19:25:37 By - Habib Zohori

Pressure is growing on the Obama administration to designate as a foreign terrorist organization the Afghan insurgent group that U.S. officials accuse of attacking the U.S. Embassy with the support of Pakistan's most powerful spy agency. | 09/26/11 19:24:02 By - Jonathan S. Landay

An Afghan employee of the United States Embassy in Kabul killed one U.S. citizen and wounded another in an attack on a CIA office inside the embassy annex Sunday, a U.S. Embassy statement said. | 09/26/11 07:43:21 By - Hibib Zohori

The attack Sunday night occurred at the former Ariana Hotel, a facility that the CIA took over soon after the start of the Afghan war in 2001. At least two Afghan army personnel were reported injured. | 09/25/11 20:22:25 By - Habib Zohori and Jonathan S. Landay

Pfc. Andrew Holmes had a bad feeling when he followed a command from a higher-ranked soldier to help search a teenage Afghan boy standing in a poppy field. Holmes knew his fellow Stryker infantryman, Spc. Jeremy Morlock, had been talking about killing Afghans in combat-like scenarios. He also knew Morlock was carrying a grenade he wasn't supposed to have. | 09/23/11 07:34:20 By - Adam Ashton

An assassin with a bomb hidden in his turban on Tuesday killed former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, the chairman of the governments peace council, in the latest in a slew of high-profile attacks and a major blow to U.S.-backed efforts to draw Taliban-led insurgents into peace talks. | 09/20/11 12:03:35 By - Hashim Shukoor and Jonathan S. Landay

A suicide bomber driving an explosive laden car rammed into the house of a senior counter-terrorism police official Monday, in the southern city of Karachi, killing eight people but the officer survived, officials said. | 09/19/11 06:38:27 By - Saeed Shah

The insurgents who besieged the U.S. Embassy here for nearly 24 hours came prepared for a long standoff: They brought blankets, water bottles and mango juice packaged in Pakistan, which lay strewn on the 13th floor of the unfinished high-rise they'd holed up in. | 09/14/11 17:30:30 By - Hashim Shukoor

Insurgent gunmen and suicide bombers struck the U.S. Embassy, NATO headquarters and other locations in Kabul on Tuesday in coordinated attacks that raised fresh uncertainty over the ability of Afghan forces to assume security from departing U.S.-led international forces. | 09/13/11 17:47:50 By - Hashim Shukoor and Jonathan S. Landay

NATO downplayed the impact of the explosion at Combat Outpost Sayed Abad, emphasizing in its announcement that none of the wounded had suffered life-threatening injuries and that most of the injured were expected to return to duty "shortly. But accounts from Afghan officials suggested that a catastrophe had been only narrowly averted. | 09/11/11 10:03:46 By - Hashim Shukoor

A decade after the 9/11 attacks, most international terrorist plots against the West have links to Pakistan, the country that became al Qaida's most important sanctuary after the United States chased the terrorist group from Afghanistan. | 09/09/11 15:28:36 By - Saeed Shah

Two suicide bombers attacked the home of a senior military officer Wednesday in the western city of Quetta, wounding him and killing at least 23 people in a possible revenge attack for Pakistans recent arrest of a senior al Qaida commander. | 09/07/11 07:00:47 By - Saeed Shah

Pakistani security forces working in co-operation with U.S. intelligence captured senior al Qaida commander Younis al Mauritani, the most important al Qaida figure in several years to be arrested in Pakistan, officials said Monday. | 09/05/11 17:24:43 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

Warring ethnic gangs have turned Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and the country's commercial capital, into a battle zone with death squads unleashing gruesome torture on ordinary citizens at a rate that far outstrips the much better publicized violence attributed to al Qaida-linked extremists. | 08/26/11 17:59:44 By - Saeed Shah

The organizers of Raleigh, North Carolina's annual spy conference have scored an espionage coup: The keynote speaker will be Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the only person who has headed both the National Security Agency (1999 to 2005) and the Central Intelligence Agency (2006 to 2009). And his topic will be one of the hottest and most current in the world of spying: the operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. | 08/22/11 09:33:34 By - Jay Price

The serenity of prayers at a mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan was transformed into a bloodbath Friday in Pakistan's remote tribal area, when a bomb ripped through the congregation and killed at least 40 people and injured more than 100 others, officials said. | 08/19/11 14:40:57 By - Saeed Shah

Roadside bombs struck two minibuses Thursday, killing 24 people and wounding 11 in western province of Herat, Afghan officials said. The province had been relatively peaceful, and U.S.-led NATO forces handed over control of security operations in the provincial capital to Afghan forces last month. | 08/18/11 11:01:18 By - Hashim Shukoor

Even as U.S.-Pakistani cooperation on anti-terrorism programs is withering, the United States is considering backing the construction of a giant, $12 billion dam in Pakistan that would be the largest civilian aid project the U.S. has undertaken here in decades. | 08/16/11 15:08:58 By - Saeed Shah

When congressional cost-cutters meet later this year to decide on trimming the federal budget, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could represent juicy targets. But how much do the wars actually cost the U.S. taxpayer? | 08/15/11 16:20:13 By - Nancy A. Youssef

The U.N. is pressing Afghanistan's electoral commission to overturn for alleged fraud the results of 17 of last year's 249 races for parliament's lower house. The number is far fewer than the 62 contests that President Hamid Karzai wanted reversed, but stops short of granting opposition lawmakers' calls for no changes at all. | 08/14/11 17:34:45 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Hashim Shukoor

Taliban insurgents stormed into the governor's compound in a normally peaceful province north of Kabul on Sunday, killing 22 and wounding at least 34 in a dramatic demonstration that few locations in Afghanistan are free from the threat of attack. | 08/14/11 17:00:22 By - Hashim Shukoor

Six Taliban insurgents equipped with suicide vests raided the governor's compound of Parwan province only miles from the largest U.S. base north of Kabul, killing at least 22 and injuring dozens of others in a gun battle that lasted less than an hour, the Afghan Interior Ministry said Sunday. | 08/14/11 11:00:36 By - Hashim Shukoor

The Department of Defense on Thursday released this list of the names of the 30 Americans who died Aug. 6 when they're Chinook helicopter was shot down by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. The remains of the dead were returned to the United States on Wednesday. | 08/11/11 23:20:16 By -

Two Pentagon officials told McClatchy on Monday that an investigation into the helicopter crash that killed 30 American troops would probe whether it's a mistake to send the large, lumbering Chinook helicopter into a Taliban firefight, where it's a target for insurgents. | 08/11/11 09:50:58 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay

A "precision airstrike" killed the insurgent who fired the rocket-propelled grenade that downed an American helicopter, killing 30 U.S. troops in the heaviest U.S. military loss of the Afghan war, the U.S.-led international coalition said Wednesday. | 08/10/11 10:21:03 By - Jonathan S. Landay

The 30 U.S. soldiers, many of them Navy SEALs, who died Saturday in the U.S. military's single biggest loss of the Afghan war, were operating in a Taliban-controlled valley where frequent U.S.-led night raids have won the insurgents popular support, area residents said Sunday. The raids occur "every night. We are very much miserable," said Roshanak Wardak, a doctor and former member of Afghanistan's parliament. | 08/07/11 19:00:18 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Hashim Shukoor

The 30 U.S. troops killed when their Chinook helicopter was shot down Saturday in eastern Afghanistan  many of them Navy SEALs  were fighting a war rarely talked about. They were not battling Afghanistans ingrained corruption, or building new roads or crafting nascent local governments. They were the ones who night after night go after the U.S.'s most-wanted of the war. | 08/06/11 18:21:18 By - Hashim Shukoor and Nancy A. Youssef

A U.S. official in Washington confirmed that most of the dead were Navy SEALs and the AP reported that they were members of SEAL Team Six, the unit that also provided the troops for the May 2 raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan. The deaths marked the highest single-incident toll of either the war in Afghanistan or Iraq. It was the worst catastrophe for the U.S. military since January 2005. | 08/06/11 07:38:48 By - Hashim Shukoor and Nancy A. Youssef

The atmosphere inside the district headquarters had grown as torrid as the pulsing summer heat outside when tempers finally exploded. The uproar that ended the traditional tribal parley last week was a measure of the volatility that's left Sarobi the only one of 15 districts in Kabul province that the U.S.-led international security force hasn't transferred to Afghan responsibility. | 08/01/11 16:27:08 By - Jonathan S. Landay

A suicide bombing that killed the mayor of Afghanistans second largest city Wednesday is the latest in a rash of high-level assassinations that have cast doubts over whether security gains in the Talibans southern heartland will survive the drawdown of U.S. "surge" troops. | 07/27/11 08:20:47 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Hashim Shukoor

The start of the U.S. troop drawdown and a raft of overlapping security, political and economic crises are fueling fears that Afghanistan could sink into wholesale turmoil and even civil war as the U.S.-led international combat mission winds up at the end of 2014. | 07/25/11 17:08:17 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Thursday that his country wasn't complicit in hiding Osama bin Laden but was "extremely negligent" for not knowing that the al Qaida leader was living a 75-mile drive from the Pakistani capital. | 07/21/11 18:44:26 By - Lydia Mulvany

Stryker brigade soldiers were open to talk of using drop weapons to murder Afghan civilians last year because it fit into other discussions about whether theyd need to plant evidence on legitimate killings to justify battlefield decisions, a private whos pleaded guilty to murdering noncombatants testified today. | 07/21/11 18:11:58 By - Adam Ashton

U.S.-led efforts to bolster Afghanistans financial sector and prevent American cash payments from being stolen or diverted to the insurgency are hampered by loose controls, poor Afghan cooperation and limited coordination among U.S. agencies, an American watchdog said Wednesday. | 07/20/11 09:00:05 By - Jonathan S. Landay

The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders on Thursday strongly condemned the CIA's secret use of a vaccination program as cover for spying on Osama bin Laden's house in Pakistan, saying the ploy would damage public health efforts in poor countries. | 07/14/11 19:02:49 By - Saeed Shah

Civilian deaths in the Afghan War reached a record high during the first half of this year, a United Nations report said Thursday, documenting a worsening toll of roadside bombs and suicide attacks by Taliban insurgents as well as helicopter-borne airstrikes by coalition forces. | 07/14/11 16:10:04 By - Habib Zohori

At least five people were killed and 15 injured on Thursday when a suicide bomb exploded at a Kandahar mosque where hundreds were paying their respects to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's powerful half-brother, who was slain this week. | 07/14/11 09:11:41 By - Habib Zohori

An emotional President Hamid Karzai kissed his slain half brother's forehead Wednesday and lowered him into a grave at his family's ancestral cemetery, a brief pause in the jockeying for who'd replace southern Afghanistan's political kingpin. | 07/13/11 18:16:56 By - Habib Zohori

There were signs Wednesday that Pakistan might free a doctor it had jailed for helping the CIA track Osama bin Laden as Pakistan's spy chief flew to Washington to try to rescue the badly strained intelligence ties between the countries. | 07/13/11 17:34:24 By - Saeed Shah

In the end, Ahmed Wali Karzai personified America's dearth of good options in Afghanistan. He was a corrupt politico who became the kingpin of volatile southern Afghanistan through kickbacks, violence, family ties, and working both sides of the war — the Taliban and the West. He promised the U.S.-led military coalition that dealing with him would promote security, but it brought mixed results at best. | 07/12/11 19:54:09 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Army Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry could have sought cover four years ago when a grenade landed near him and two of his fellow soldiers, all of them caught in an Afghanistan compound full of insurgents. That's what every soldier is trained to do. But he didn't. Petry picked the grenade up and threw it just as it exploded. | 07/12/11 19:52:44 By - Lydia Mulvany

The Obama administration is pressing Islamabad to release a doctor who was arrested for working for the CIA to help confirm that Osama bin Laden lived in Abbottabad, officials said, but the doctor's fate has become hostage to the bitter confrontation between Islamabad and Washington. | 07/12/11 17:46:47 By - Saeed Shah

Ahmed Wali Karzai, one of the most powerful men in Afghanistan and the half-brother of President Hamid Karzai, was assassinated Tuesday in his own house in Kandahar, the family's home town. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the killing. | 07/12/11 06:32:36 By - Habib Zohori and Saeed Shah

McClatchys series on the woes of U.S. contracting in Afghanistan has won the National Press Clubs award for diplomatic coverage. The Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence will be awarded to McClatchy on Aug. 10 at the National Press Clubs annual dinner. | 07/11/11 18:54:22 By -

Pakistani authorities have jailed a doctor who helped the CIA by creating an elaborate plot to get DNA samples of Osama bin Ladens family before the al Qaida leader was killed in a special forces raid here. | 07/11/11 16:19:04 By - Saeed Shah

The Pakistan military declared Sunday that it doesn't need U.S. military aid, as the White House confirmed that Washington is stopping some $800 million in assistance to Pakistan's armed forces, further poisoning ties between the two anti-terror "allies." | 07/11/11 00:37:52 By - Saeed Shah

At least four of the 28 minesweepers who were abducted four days ago by unknown gunmen in western Afghanistan have been found dead, local officials said Sunday, as a wave of attacks across the country killed three NATO soldiers. The workers belonged to the United Nations-supported Demining Agency for Afghanistan, a local non-governmental organization based in Kabul and which operates all over the country. | 07/11/11 00:37:32 By - Hashim Shukoor

The CIA still is launching drone strikes against al Qaida and allied extremists from a base in southwestern Pakistan, indicating that key facets of counterterrorism cooperation have survived the serious strains in U.S.-Pakistani relations since Osama bin Laden's killing, U.S. officials said. | 06/30/11 18:55:03 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Afghan officials vowed Wednesday that a terrorist attack on one of the capital's best-known hotels wouldn't disrupt plans for the country's police and military to assume responsibility for security next month in seven key areas, including Kabul. | 06/29/11 16:34:33 By - Hashim Shukoor

The attorney for a soldier and alleged member of a so-called Afghan kill team used a hearing to stage an all-out assault on the government's key witness in the case, saying Pvt. Jeremy Morlock changed his story to win the best plea deal from prosecutors. | 06/29/11 07:50:19 By - Christian Hill

Taliban insurgents, some of them dressed in traditional Afghan tunics and playing loud religious music over their cell phones, took over the Kabul Intercontinental hotel for more than six hours overnight. When the siege was finally ended early Wednesday by NATO helicopters, at least 10 civilians were dead, as were all of the attackers. | 06/29/11 00:21:12 By - Hashim Shukoor

President Barack Obama announced plans Wednesday to pull 33,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan well before next year's election, signaling a rapid drawdown sure to please Americans weary of the nearly decade-long war and its costs. | 06/28/11 18:49:55 By - Steven Thomma, Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

In the two months since a U.S. special forces raid killed Osama bin Laden in this town, Pakistani authorities have arrested more than 30 people who either were suspected of having ties to the terrorist leader or were thought to have assisted U.S. authorities in tracking him down. | 06/28/11 18:46:46 By - Saeed Shah

President Barack Obama rejected the U.S military's recommended timeline for pulling 33,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, opting for a faster, more "aggressive" drawdown of "greater risk," the top U.S. military officer and the senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Thursday. | 06/24/11 07:36:38 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

Some of the first images in a set of notorious photographs showing soldiers posing with dead Afghans were taken with a sense pride that the Army was fighting and killing its enemy, a Stryker officer testified Thursday. Capt. Roman Ligsay said he felt a sense of accomplishment when he saw an Afghan who was killed by an American helicopter. | 06/23/11 20:53:23 By - Adam Ashton

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday endorsed President Barack Obama's plan to withdraw 33,000 American troops from Afghanistan by the middle of next year, though his principal political rival questioned the government's ability to follow through. | 06/23/11 16:16:38 By - Hashim Shukoor

Two top U.S. military commanders told Congress on Thursday that President Barack Obama's proposal to draw down 33,000 troops from Afghanistan was riskier and more aggressive than he had proposed. | 06/23/11 12:13:47 By - Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay

The Afghan army said Wednesday that it supported any U.S. plans to withdraw troops from the country and that it was ready to fill the gap. "We welcome the decision of the U.S. people and the U.S. president regarding the withdrawal of a number of troops and support such a decision," said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry. | 06/22/11 17:22:50 By - Hashim Shukoor

Three soldiers convicted of crimes and ordered kicked out of the Army in connection with a yearlong investigation into alleged civilian murders in Afghanistan continue to wear the Army uniform and draw military pay. They are key witnesses against six other soldiers. | 06/21/11 07:11:31 By -

President Barack Obama will unveil an Afghanistan force drawdown plan on Wednesday that is expected to call for the withdrawal of the 33,000 U.S. troops deployed in last year's surge by the end of 2012, U.S. defense officials said. | 06/20/11 21:04:24 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

Two men convicted of killing more than 40 people in a February siege on a bank in the eastern city of Jalalabad were hanged in a prison Monday in rare executions ordered by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. | 06/20/11 15:25:45 By - Hashim Shukoor

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that the U.S. is holding direct talks with the Taliban, the first public confirmation of the secret effort to end the nearly decade-long war. Karzai's comments, made in a speech filled with criticism of the U.S., came hours before a suicide attack on a police station in central Kabul that killed at least nine people and injured 10 others just a few hundred yards from Karzai's heavily fortified palace. | 06/18/11 19:06:28 By - Hashim Shukoor and Jonathan S. Landay

President Barack Obama is expected to unveil his U.S. troop reduction plan for Afghanistan next week, buoyed by assessments by senior defense officials that the U.S. war strategy is headed in the right direction and has weakened the Taliban-led insurgency. | 06/17/11 19:53:14 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef

This is the text of the al Qaida statement naming Ayman al Zawahiri as the successor to Osama bin Laden. It was translated from the Arabic by McClatchy special correspondent Mohannad Sabry. | 06/16/11 21:04:14 By -

If you need proof that the tide on Capitol Hill has turned against the war in Afghanistan, Exhibit A is Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington state, the top-ranked House Democrat in charge of the Pentagon's budget. | 06/16/11 19:11:56 By - Rob Hotakainen

U.S. and Pakistani officials acknowledged Wednesday that Pakistan has arrested several of its own citizens who helped the CIA spy on the house where Osama bin Laden lived. | 06/16/11 06:33:09 By - Saeed Shah

Afghanistan's second vice president and the country's interior minister were uninjured Wednesday when Taliban insurgents fired a mortar at the opening ceremony of a vast new police training academy outside Kabul. | 06/16/11 06:32:05 By - Hashim Shukoor

A joint Afghanistan-Pakistan peace commission met for the first time Saturday, an initiative to try to settle the near-decade-long insurgency in Afghanistan. But analysts are skeptical of results from the unwieldy body, and the process is further undermined by Washington's opaque position on negotiations. | 06/13/11 10:59:09 By - Saeed Shah

At least 21 people were killed in a series of attacks across Afghanistan on Saturday as a U.N. agency announced that May had been the deadliest month for Afghan civilians since 2007. | 06/13/11 10:58:47 By - Hashim Shukoor

The man who took charge of Pakistan's intelligence agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks said Wednesday that he wasn't surprised that Osama bin Laden had been living in his country but that he doubted the al Qaida leader had been hiding out for five years in the compound where he died. | 06/10/11 07:20:12 By - Carol Rosenberg

Egyptian radical Ayman al Zawahiri on Wednesday issued his first statement since U.S. special forces killed al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. In a video, Zawahiri promised to carry on the al Qaida founder's war against the West. | 06/10/11 07:19:49 By - Carol Rosenberg

Pakistan's army lashed out Thursday at its critics at home as well as in the United States in an angry statement that underscored just how deep a crisis the country's armed forces are suffering. | 06/09/11 19:24:32 By - Saeed Shah

A six-week-old Taliban offensive that's struck some of the most peaceful parts of Afghanistan and killed police commanders and senior officials is undermining confidence in the Afghan army and police just as the Obama administration considers how quickly it should begin drawing down U.S. forces here. | 06/09/11 18:10:25 By - Hashim Shukoor

As he mulls how many U.S. troops to pull out of Afghanistan starting next month, President Barack Obama is coming under increasing pressure from Democratic lawmakers and a growing number of Republicans to re-examine his war strategy following Osama bin Laden's death. | 06/08/11 19:11:18 By - Jonathan S. Landay, Nancy A. Youssef and William Douglas

The commander of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan painted an optimistic picture Tuesday of the progress in training Afghan security forces, a crucial pillar of President Barack Obama's plans to begin withdrawing American forces from that country in July. | 06/07/11 18:39:47 By - Daniel Lippman

Responding to growing concern among war-weary constituents about the purpose and cost of the U.S. mission in Libya, senators are poised to debate whether to send President Barack Obama a message that he needs to be more specific about his goals there. | 06/07/11 17:35:27 By - David Lightman and William Douglas

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made an unannounced visit here Saturday and said that Afghan security forces must take more responsibilities for a successful transition from U.S.-led NATO forces starting this July. | 06/04/11 17:07:41 By - Hashim Shukoor

Ilyas Kashmiri was one of the most wanted militants in the world, carrying a $5 million American bounty on his head and charged in Chicago with planning an attack on a Danish newspaper. His was one of the names on a list U.S. officials delivered to Pakistan of top terrorists they wanted Pakistan's help in hunting down. | 06/04/11 12:19:47 By - Saeed Shah

A month after U.S. Navy SEALs shot and killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's investigation into how the al Qaida leader hid out here undetected for at least five years has hit major stumbling blocks even before it has begun, leaving politicians and analysts to wonder whether Pakistan will ever get to the bottom of the affair. | 06/03/11 06:33:53 By - Saeed Shah

The tortured corpse of a prominent Pakistani journalist, who'd told friends he feared that the country's military intelligence agency would kill him, was found Tuesday, two days after he disappeared. Syed Saleem Shahzad, 40, often produced stories that embarrassed Pakistan's military and its Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. | 05/31/11 18:02:49 By - Saeed Shah

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, angered by an airstrike that Afghan officials said killed 14 civilians over the weekend, demanded Tuesday that the U.S.-led coalition halt aerial strikes on Afghan houses and threatened to take unspecified actions if the coalition doesn't comply. | 05/31/11 16:02:36 By - Hashim Shukoor

Unlike the near universal hatred Osama bin Laden's name provokes in the West, the emotions in Afghanistan, where he once lived, are much more nuanced. Bin Laden's former neighbors are more likely to remember him as a hero of the war against the Soviet Union than a terrorist leader who killed more Muslims than Westerners in his long campaign against the infidel. | 05/29/11 17:48:40 By - Hashim Shukoor

A suicide bomber claimed the life of one of Afghanistan's most renown anti-Taliban commanders Saturday in a brazen strike that also killed a provincial police chief, two NATO soldiers and narrowly missed killing the German general who commands NATO troops in northern Afghanistan. The explosion, which also wounded the governor of Takhar province, took place at about 4 p.m. as the men were leaving what the governor's spokesman described as a high-level security meeting in the governor's compound. | 05/28/11 12:22:59 By - Hashim Shukoor

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that Pakistani officials had conceded that al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden must have had a support network in Pakistan to have remained undetected for at least five years in the city of Abbottabad, home to the country's premier military academy. | 05/27/11 17:16:34 By - Saeed Shah

Though the bid to force Obama to expedite the U.S. exit failed by a surprisingly close 215 to 204 vote — with mostly Democrats but also a sizeable number of Republicans voting for it — it was clear from the debate and vote that Obama's party is growing restless as the 2012 campaign approaches. | 05/26/11 15:03:51 By - David Lightman and William Douglas

As the House of Representatives engaged Wednesday in a tense debate over U.S. policy in Afghanistan, the first since the death of Osama bin Laden, some lawmakers in each party called for a quicker exit of U.S. troops, reflecting that the public mood toward American involvement there is growing impatient. | 05/25/11 18:48:19 By - David Lightman and William Douglas

The Afghan Taliban on Monday denied reports that their leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, one of the most wanted men in Afghanistan, had been killed, as Afghan authorities said that he'd disappeared from Quetta, Pakistan, where he's thought to have spent the last 10 years hiding out. | 05/23/11 16:02:46 By - Hashim Shukoor

The ability of only six armed extremists to storm a Pakistani navy base in the city of Karachi and hold out for 16 hours raised new fears Monday about the security of the countrys military installations, including its nuclear weapons sites. It was an ignominious attack for Pakistan's armed forces, coming three weeks after the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden. | 05/23/11 10:38:51 By - Saeed Shah

The military has repatriated to Afghanistan the remains of a 47-year-old Guantánamo captive who apparently committed suicide with a bed sheet at a prison camp for compliant captives. | 05/23/11 06:54:15 By - Carol Rosenberg

At least four gunmen equipped with arms and explosive vests stormed a government building in the eastern province of Khost on Sunday morning, triggering several hours of clashes with security forces, local officials said. | 05/22/11 16:03:17 By - Hashim Shukoor

A midday explosion Saturday caused by a suicide bomber inside the Kabul's main military hospital killed six and injured dozens of others, officials said. Taliban militants claimed credit for the attack shortly after noon, saying two of their suicide bombers entered the hospital. | 05/21/11 13:16:53 By - Hashim Shukoor

Two American officials were saved by their armored vehicle Friday when it was hit by a bomb in the northwestern city of Peshawar, in an apparent revenge attack for the killing of Osama bin Laden. | 05/20/11 07:09:59 By - Saeed Shah

At least 28 people died in Afghanistan on Wednesday in three separate explosions of violence that illustrate the wide array of mayhem that wracks this country and the anger that surrounds U.S. actions here. | 05/18/11 10:13:59 By - Hashim Shukoor

Pakistan said Tuesday that it had arrested an al Qaida operative in the southern city of Karachi, the first arrest of a terrorism suspect since an American special forces raid killed Osama bin Laden deep inside the country on May 2. | 05/18/11 06:35:42 By - Saeed Shah

After two weeks of rising acrimony, U.S. and Pakistani officials moved Monday to smooth over tensions triggered by the May 2 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden. | 05/16/11 18:23:02 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

A double suicide bombing Friday against a paramilitary security force claimed at least 80 lives in north west Pakistan, an attack that extremists declared was revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden in the country. | 05/13/11 08:37:43 By - Saeed Shah

If Pakistani officials helped hide Osama bin Laden, there are unlikely to be serious consequences because the government is too weak and the United States has bigger priorities, such as ending the Afghan war and helping to stabilize poor, terrorism-plagued Pakistan, which has the world's fastest-growing nuclear arsenal. | 05/11/11 21:08:07 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Saeed Shah

Osama bin Laden's death hasn't changed the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, and it must continue, the U.S. commander in charge of the country's east said Tuesday. | 05/10/11 19:01:11 By - Nancy A. Youssef

President Barack Obama, in an interview broadcast on Sunday, demanded to know what kind of "support network" Osama bin Laden had in Pakistan, adding to the pressure on Pakistan's government to explain the al Qaida chief's presence in the country. | 05/09/11 07:08:21 By - Saeed Shah

Taliban militants equipped with explosives vests and guns fought for a second day on Sunday in the southern city of Kandahar, targeting government and military compounds from commercial buildings. | 05/09/11 06:33:44 By - Hashim Shukoor

Afghanistan's Taliban, who sheltered Osama bin Laden when they governed the country prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Tuesday that it would be "premature" to comment on U.S. claims that the al Qaida leader had been killed during a raid on a compound in Pakistan. | 05/03/11 17:24:20 By - Hashim Shukoor

Without him, there would likely be no Department of Homeland Security, no Patriot Act, no Quran-burning pastors. Had Osama bin Laden never been born, there would surely be fewer gold star mothers and fathers, less need for prosthetic limbs for young troops, an American public still largely ignorant to the Muslim concept of martyrdom. | 05/02/11 21:10:28 By - Scott Canon and Rick Montgomery

Osama bin Laden's death is likely to alter U.S. relations with Pakistan profoundly, and may open a door to negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to lawmakers in Congress and analysts of the war on terror. | 05/02/11 18:33:25 By - William Douglas and David Lightman

Afghans used the death of Osama bin Laden to plead for the end of the war in their country, saying the killing of the al Qaida leader in Pakistan proves that Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is where the war needs to be fought. | 05/02/11 14:42:50 By - Hashim Shukoor

It took years for the U.S. military to track Osama bin Laden down, finding him not in a cave in the inaccessible tribal regions of Pakistan, but in a sumptuous luxury compound built just six years ago in the same city that is home to Pakistan's most prestigious military academy. The raid that killed him lasted just 40 minutes. | 05/02/11 03:08:42 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Lindsey Graham, old-style politicians who wear their emotions on their sleeves, traveled the world together when Biden served in the Senate. Graham guessed why Biden might be calling him at home on a Sunday night. | 05/02/11 01:37:21 By - James Rosen

Osama bin Laden earned his combat spurs by fighting with Afghanistan's ragtag Mujahadeen army to drive occupying Soviet troops out of their homeland in the 1980s. Bin Laden, though, had a far bigger vision, one that would lead him to be reviled by Western civilization. | 05/02/11 01:08:17 By - Greg Gordon

The tall, lean, rich man's son could have spent his life lounging about Saudi Arabia in luxury. Instead, Osama bin Laden chose to kill. As a young man, he shot at Soviet invaders in Afghanistan. In middle age, he turned his wrath and far-reaching resources against the United States — the superpower he saw as spoiler of his homeland's sacred cities. By the time of his death, his was the face of terrorism. | 05/02/11 00:06:39 By - Rick Montgomery and Scott Canon

Osama Bin Laden is dead. President Barack Obama made the dramatic late-night announcement Sunday from the East Room of the White House, ending the long, elusive international manhunt for the leader of the al Qaida terror organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "Justice has been done," the president said in a 10-minute address shortly before midnight. | 05/01/11 22:47:13 By - Margaret Talev and Jonathan S. Landay

A 12-year-old suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest detonated himself Sunday in a market in southeastern Afghanistan's Paktika province, killing four people, including a local council chief, provincial government officials said. | 05/01/11 15:18:32 By - Hashim Shukoor

The Taliban on Sunday will begin a spring offensive against the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, a statement posted on the insurgent group's website said. Violence has increased across Afghanistan as the U.S.-led NATO forces are preparing to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces starting this summer. | 04/30/11 17:28:03 By - Hashim Shukoor

Taliban militants in Pakistan extended their campaign of violence against the countrys security forces Thursday, targeting the navy for the third time this week with a bombing that killed five in the southern city of Karachi. | 04/28/11 09:04:13 By - Saeed Shah

An Afghan military pilot opened fire Wednesday on U.S.-led NATO troops at the airport here, killing eight soldiers and a civilian contractor, in the deadliest single attack on international forces in years. | 04/27/11 07:54:08 By - Hashim Shukoor

U.S.-led NATO forces killed a top al Qaida member, Abu Hafs al Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani, in an airstrike April 13 in the eastern province of Kunar, according to a statement the International Security Assistance Force issued Tuesday. | 04/26/11 07:05:03 By - Hashim Shukoor

U.S.-backed Afghan forces launched a massive manhunt Monday for hundreds of inmates, most of them Taliban fighters, who fled down a tunnel burrowed under the walls of a maximum security prison. | 04/25/11 08:59:25 By - Hashim Shukoor

Even as it publicly demands an end to U.S. drone attacks on militants in its tribal area, Pakistan is allowing the CIA to launch the missile-firing robot aircraft from an airbase in its province of Baluchistan, U.S. officials said Friday. | 04/22/11 19:52:57 By - Jonathan S. Landay

At least five border policemen were killed and one wounded when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in the southern province of Kandahar, officials said Friday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Taliban militants mostly have been blamed — or take credit — for other recent attacks. | 04/22/11 12:59:32 By - Hashim Shukoor

At least five border policemen were killed and one wounded when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in the southern province of Kandahar, officials said Friday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Taliban militants mostly have been blamed — or take credit — for other recent attacks. | 04/22/11 12:44:39 By - Hashim Shukoor

Nine years after being gang-raped on the orders of a village council, Mukhtar Mai's struggle for justice ended Thursday when Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered five of the six accused to be freed. | 04/21/11 16:30:41 By - Saeed Shah

The top uniformed American military official used an interview on Pakistani television Wednesday to accuse the country's spy agency of supporting a leading Afghan insurgent group that's killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan. | 04/20/11 17:36:18 By - Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay

For the second time in three days, a Taliban suicide bomber in an Afghan army uniform on Monday penetrated a supposedly secure Afghan military facility, the latest evidence that military and government supporters are at risk even inside the most heavily guarded locations. | 04/18/11 22:40:07 By - Hashim Shukoor

Eight soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition were killed Saturday in Taliban bombings, including a suicide attack at a military base in the eastern province of Laghman, the single deadliest attack on the alliance in months. | 04/16/11 08:23:35 By - Hashim Shukoor

Habibullah remembers the last time he saw his 18-year-old son. It was a Friday morning, the first day of April, and his son, a high school student, wanted to go to the city to buy some clothes and a cellphone. | 04/15/11 15:52:46 By - Hashim Shukoor

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SPECIAL REPORT: AFGHAN CONTRACTS

The U.S. is spending billions of dollars to build facilities for Afghanistan's expanding national police and new garrisons for its army. The program, like much of the wider Afghan reconstruction effort, is faltering.